French Film Search and Destroy

La Regle Du Jeu
Three Colours Blue
L'Apartement

Destroy:

Last Year at Marienbad

destroy: films in which people sit around and smoke gitanes self-importantly (apart from A Bout De Souffle), lush historical dramas with no plot (e.g. that one about the Sun King's composer), etc.

Which of the several thousand do you mean?

Search

Les Enfants du Paradis
Delicatessan
Jean de Florettes
Manon des Sources
L'Adolescente
And God Created Woman

Search: Savage Nights, Diva, The Horseman on the Roof
Destroy: The Hairdresser's Husband (or Wife, whatever, it was wretched)

Amateurist, which is your favorite Tati? I like Playtime.

I like everything Tati. I didn't like Traffic as much as the others but then I saw it on an itsy bitsy TV so who knows? Have you seen his last, Parade?

Buñuel is Spanish but his last few films were made in France. Likewise Max Ophüls is Austrian but his last few (brilliant) films were made in France.

gainsburg-je t'aime.
assayas-l'eau froide.
truffaut-400 coups
vigo-zero en conduit.
godard-pierrot le fou

but there's so much stuff....

destroy
amelie.

and, yes, a good commercial release Vidocq. You wouldn't expect your regular XIXth century immortal french alchemist performing matrix style kung fu moves that good...

Parade is a very odd film--the oddest I know. It's charming but very demaning in its own way (not unlike Playtime). You have to see it once, then see it again with suitably revised expectations.

likewise - whats to dislike about La Haine?

Also terrible: Claude Lelouch. He gets a pass for inventing the, er, Lelouch, though.

Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train is pretty good.

as is "The Self Made Hero"

"Amelie" proves you can't base an entire film out of some attractive bird staring doe-eyed at the camera.

No Ally on this thread yet?

Delicatessen
Le Jour Du Fete (My favorite Tati)
La Vaccance de M. Hulot
La Haine
Milou en Mai
Clubbed to Death
Doberman

Destroy
Amelie (or rather just feh)

Can anyone tell me what the film is that features Gerard Depardieu as a gay burglar who mugs a couple and ensnares them into his life of crime and buggery?

And I personally could never stand Jacques Tati.

But that said, search away for Bande apart (Band of OUtsiders), Le Mépris (Contempt), Truffaut's Doinel movies, anything by Renoir (especially Grand Illusion + Rules of the Game), Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, errr. Lots more.

For more recent stuff I highly stuff by Ozon (Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes, Sous le sable--and 8 femmes is sort of a treat). Also Olivier Assayas' Irma Vep, one of my favourite movies and sadly underseen.

I like 'a woman is a woman' a lot, too.

I like 'amelie'.

'alphaville'!

Destroy
Luc Besson's English Films

that was the one I was thinking of re WG.

Just watched Jessica Hausner's Lourdes, which gets a firm recommendation.

If nothing else, Sylvie Testud is amazing. Great performances throughout in fact, and a really beguiling mix of oddness and o_0 at what Lourdes is like.

yeah, lourdes is great; has anyone seen any other hausner? her characterisation was so delicate and subtle.

new-to-US F. Ozon Le Refuge (Hideaway) is not bad at all, best I've seen from him in 10 years.

I came to thread to rep for Classe tous risques, directed by Claude Sautet, with Lino Ventura as a tough guy on the run with two little kids in tow and a bunch of friends who are vacillating between helping him and crossing him.

which I guess various people have already repped for on other threads.

Destroy: Mathieu Kassovitz's annoying Spike Lee knockoff Cafe au lait.

I think I'm still down on Ozon after 5x2, so I'm not really willing to give the new one a chance.

Watched Rivette's Joan Of Arc biopic yesterday - all 6 hours - and loved it. But I don't need to hear about Joan Of Arc ever again.

Also, "La Nuit de Varennes" is awesome, esp. for Mastroianni as Casanova and the lead guy from Les Enfants Du Paradis (Barrault?) as the old pornographer. Loved their scenes together.

http://www.ica.org.uk/31715/Film/Hadewijch.html

Anyone seen? I know most ppl have problems w/his films, which is one reason why I'm happy to entertain the notion that he's better than Bresson, whom he is compared to.

sacrilege

crucify me :-)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/google-doodle/9063144/Francois-Truffauts-80th-birthday-marked-with-Google-doodle.html

ihttp://frenchfilms.topcities.com/1936_Un_roman_d_un_tricheur.jpg
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, February 3, 2005 2:33 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Re. Sacha Guitry: Also search Désiré and Les perles de la couronne. And Eclipse could do worse that to put out another set of Guitry films.

'Hadewijch' ws pretty fkn good. I just loved the actress and her gait is so...Bressonian I guess, weight of the world on her knees and arms.

Not sure where to begin but the story, while boringly pushing the 'provocation' button had the politics-to-religion ratio spot on -- best exemplified by the terrific scene of muslim and christiam prayer in the guy's room.

Destroy: Mathieu Kassovitz's annoying Spike Lee knockoff Cafe au lait.

Haven't seen anything M.K. has directed since La Haine, which I remember liking, but if that was so amazing why has he since made stuff nobody liked? (Halle Berry and Vin Diesel thrillerz, o boy)

see also bob swaim and la balance

i guess some ppl just have one gd film in them - or, only once find themselves in the right circumstances to make a gd film.

should i revisit 'betty blue'? it's been over a decade and i barely remember anything beyond the opening scene and the song they play over the credits.

a lot of directors begin their careers with lean, raw, kinetic thrillers that more or less beat the audience into submission. films with something to prove. few directors, however, keep making those sorts of films. most graduate quickly to more ambitious/mainstream/thoughtful fare, often with disappointing results.

Moreau! Belmondo! Had no idea these two made a Brook/Duras film in 1960.

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/moderato-cantabile

David Ehrenstein on Duras:

http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/the-films-of-marguerite-duras

can someone tell me how is Naked Childhood by Maurice Pialat (his debut).

seen lot's of praise , but almost no "official" Reviews

it was produced by truffaut, and has things in common w/ 400 blows. there is some tough to watch animal cruelty, and some nakedly human performances that also might make you want to look away, if you weren't so transfixed by the truth of the acting. it is one of the great directorial debuts, certainly as good as anything else by Pialat (which is high praise imho)

great. i will watch!

thnx

ILX search tells me i put it on my "best rep watches" for 2004, so that's the best i can do.

oh cool Ehrenstein still writes besides trolling comments sections.

Jean Grémillon retro in NYC

http://www.movingimage.us/films/2014/11/21/detail/jean-grmillon/

Since the only ones that seem "available" digitally are Lumiere d'été, Remorques and Le ciel est à vous, another argument for quitting my job to go to rep screenings.

anyone seen anything here? new Techine and Honore....

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/rendez-vous-with-french-cinema-2015

well Melvil Poupaud AND Anders Danielsen Lie are in Fidelio, l'odyssée d'Alice, so that's double-stud action...

I really liked Outside Satan. Quiet, contemplative violence, beautifully shot.

i'm going to ask here about the 1951 a/g classic VENOM AND ETERNITY?

http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=07&year=2015#showing-44511

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t05VTBTAtUQ

so the Pagnol trilogy from the '30s, what of it? Nick Pinkerton:

https://www.artforum.com/film/id=65686

I like. Didn't someone like Orson Welles say Raimu was his favorite actor or the world's best actor or something to that effect?

Wiki sez "was considered the ultimate actor by luminaries such as Alec Guinness, Marlene Dietrich, and Orson Welles."

My partner's french and this x-mas her brother gave me a buncha French popular classics: Yves Robert, "La Traversée De Paris" with Gabin and Bouvril, Coluche, a Lelouche movie with Lino Ventura and Jacques Brel, a buncha Louis de Funès movies that are supposedly much better than the Gendarme stuff. It's interesting how these mainstream things are much more obscure outside France than Rivette or Eustache even (Lelouche exempted - I gather we're not supposed to like him?).

I love some Lelouche and among my film loving friends in France - all in their late 20s-late 30s - his stuff is pretty much embraced. The one your partner got is fun - the pairing of Ventura and Brel never fails (see "L'Emmerdeur").

Actually have "La Traversée De Paris" lined up to watch. I haven't seen Bourvil in anything other than "Le Cercle Rouge" so seeing him do his thing as a comedian will probably be a little jarring at first.

This looks great:

https://www.barbican.org.uk/film/event-detail.asp?ID=20802

just a few days ago I was nearly going to suggest to my gf we watch "Going Places" ('74 Bertrand blier) cuz I knew it was expiring from Netflix and that it was French and she knows a bit of the language -- dodged a bullet there lmao, its not horror but it is like extreme nasty French misogyny/nihilism. its hard to be convincing and be like I swear I had no idea this was the subject matter! even when that is 100% true ~
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, September 30, 2015 12:08 PM

Rewatched this week (remembering hardly anything from decades back) and yeah this would never be distributed today...

But surely it is meant as a commentary on what we now call toxic masculinity? Or was Jeanne Moreau just a witting accomplice to misogyny?

Finally watching the Pagnol Marseille trilogy on CC. Raimu reminds me of Gleason and Zero Mostel; I wonder if they saw his work.

Gigi. No, wait...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, February 24, 2003 11:35 AM (sixteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Search Gigi (Audry, 1949).

Urgent and key: Search Razzia Sur La Chnouf (Decoin, 1955; just released in a Region A Blu-ray by Kino Lorber)

also, the (first) US condensation of the Pagnol trilogy was directed by James Whale and written by Preston Sturges :o

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/indochina-song

Also, xpost, what?

All seven episodes of Pialat's 1971 TV series The House in the Woods have now been uploaded to YT, with English subs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1aHhIVFRt8&list=PLh06URz4IJQ4iUTdz7ECikWiRvfLaeCXc&fbclid=IwAR2JjPTudCJuabeLkOKV5OBjLVoLQKWHC5OIkJzQ890BzUTbQ3aUY4z6COI

👍👍👍

How bad is Lelouch, actually? I've long known he's To Avoid, but have followed those instructions and so cannot actually say...

His version of Les Miserables isn't bad from what I remember 25 years ago.

Guess I'll find out, got roped into recording a podcast on Les Uns Et Les Autres.